When we got back I was welcomed by all six other Ambassadors via vid-com, fully transformed. Seeing the future form of humanity on those screens gave me hope. There was talk of others gaining insatiable appetites but thanks to my early transformation there were protocols in place that could handle so many people needing that much food. We were finally able to get our neighbors in the Milky-way to provide food synthesizers to prevent "ecological disaster", as Mei-lin put it. People were changing in groups as small as 2 to as large as a few thousand. There were days where only one person would transform; they garnered some notoriety. Some began to believe that the world only had so much energy to help us transform a day and that these people used it all. An interesting thought but there was no science behind it. There was no science behind any of this to be fair.
Something we didn't really think about, after not needing it for so long, was clothing. We weren't as "exposed" as our former bodies sans clothing but on some people things... were very visible. Luckily there were remnants of malls and clothing stores that hadn't been destroyed but there was still a problem. On average, we were bigger. Some adults were still 5 foot and shorter but there were far more people standing at 8 feet than before. Emmeth told me we used to be around the same height, 5'10" but here I was, standing at 7'6". Researchers said it was because of the enormity of the animal species we'd been spliced with. Upon looking around I couldn't argue that point.
Catty, Nik and Emmeth were part of the first groups to transform. Catty was a giant at 8 feet tall while Nik and Emmeth were about 7, give'er take an inch between them.
"Why the hell are you so tall!"
"Cuz I'm a panther Emmeth."
"Don't give me that logic shit!"
Catty started chuckling and Nik stifled his own as Emmeth glared at the reading, straightening his posture over and over trying to eek out every millimetre of height from his new body.
"This ain't right."
"You're super fast so it balances out."
"NO! I'm supposed to be the tallest!"
I was caught off guard by his sudden anger but Catty put a hand on my shoulder.
"Don't pay any attention to him, he's just being a diva."
"No I'm not!"
"Emmy cut it..."
"DON'T CALL ME EMMY!"
The look on Catty's face changed instantly from smiling and laughing to confused and a little frightened.
"Woah woah, alright. I'm sorry."
His eyes raced to each one of us as if he were anticipating a fight. He looked at his hand and saw he'd basically crushed the neck of the scale. He looked back at us and his aggression disappeared. There was an intense sadness behind his eyes. A small murmur of "sorry" slipped out of his mouth before he left the room as fast as he could.
"Wait, Emmeth!... "
I ran out of the makeshift hospital but saw no sign of him. Catty and Nik were close behind; Catty spoke first.
"... When you were still Mannie, we'd all joke that Emmeth and Kristoff were psychically connected. If one cut them-self cooking, the other would know. They said they just knew..."
"Well that was just a joke right? They weren't really connected like that were they?"
Nik elbowed me in the side and spoke telepathically. "We are now, who's to say they weren't before." Nik walked back into the Hospital for his exam and I wasn't sure what to do besides go back to working on my A.G. System.
*****
After a few months there was something of a heated debate rolling through communities. Some people who had changed were being chastised for spending time with Ferals and treating them like equals. When we were all still reliant on translators it was hard to tell... now the difference was night and day. Some of the people we'd become friends with, whom we just thought didn't want "collars", weren't transforming. When given a translator, their speech just came out as gobbledygook i.e. electronic crackles, pops but mostly random words. The people who were spending the most time with them swore that they were their wife, brother, sister mother, or father from before The Fall. Other's just saw them as members of our society now. Talk of what should be done about the Ferals was the main conversation.
Should we allow them to continue living with us?
Are they equal?
They have a less involved internal world than the rest of us so they are clearly just animals, right?
One day three people came up to me, only one had transformed. I'd been in a new workshop because Lancieta wouldn't allow me to shove the prototype into my room. People generally left me alone when they saw me working but these three looked worried. One of them, a Ferret, was looking at the other two, with almost a confused expression. The one who'd transformed was a Mongoose. The third, a Koala, had her hand on the Ferret, keeping them calm.
"Ambassador Panzer, we're sorry to bother you but we didn't know who else to turn to."
"You don't have to call me Ambassador, Panzer's fine. What's wrong?"
I jumped down from the wing and a cable caught my foot, making me face plant the landing.
"Oh my god are you ok?!"
"I'm fine..." I stood up quickly "...but what's up, you three look worried."
The Mongoose looked at the other two and tried to talk but couldn't bring himself to utter a word. The Ferret wrapped themself around his legs and the Koala walked forward to speak.
"Well, it's just... we're afraid for Jake's safety and our own to be frank."
"Why, was there an unauthorized landing?"
"No! Nothing like that but it's just... our community, they don't like ferals or people who associate with them."
"What do you mean?"
I looked at Jake's neck and didn't see a translator.
"Well have you tried giving Jake a translator? Maybe it can help us communicate better?"
The Koala's hands moved to her neck and I noticed she was wearing two. She took one off and put it around the Ferret's neck. Jake looked worried for a moment but the Mongoose knelt down and put a hand on his head.
"It's ok Jake, Panzer's smart and kind."
"Green field. Clouds."
I was taken aback. I was ready to wrench on it to make it work but it just worked, like normal.
" 'Clouds' means he isn't sure if he can trust you. 'Green field' means he isn't scared."
"It's ok Jake. I don't want to hurt you or your friends. I want to know why you're afraid."
Silence from Jakes translator.
"Panzer, he may not have woken up like most of us but, he's not an animal! We think that most ferals are like Jake."
I put a hand outward towards Jake, trying to show I was friendly.
"Butterfly."
"We still haven't figured out what that mean exactly, it's his favourite - mental image."
Jake walked over to me and smelled my hand.
"Garbage pile."
"I'm sorry! I was working on... give me a moment to wash my hands, ok Jake?"
He sat down and again, silence from his translator. I walked over to the sink and washed my hands, slightly embarrassed but mostly confused.
"How do you know it's mental images that are being picked up by the translator?"
"We tried to remember how it felt before we woke up and the only things we could remember came out of our translators the same way. So we reprogrammed Jakes translator."
I dried off my hands and walked back over to Jake and again offered my hand.
"Green field."
"That means he likes your smell."
"Well that's a start. Thank you Jake."
Jake stood up on his hind legs and put his paw on my palm. I spoke addressing the three of them.
"What are people saying? Why are you afraid?"
The Koala and Mongoose walked forward and the Koala sat down next to Jake before speaking.
"There's been talk of hunting parties to kill the ferals... not just the dangerous ones."
The mere thought of it filled me with rage. I had to actively keep the red patches from spreading.
"This is the first I've heard of it!"
"That's because people know you'd be against it."
I exhaled my disgust and spent a few seconds in thought. My face scowled as I thought through scenarios and work-around's. The three in front of me didn't know what to make of my silence and just stood there, worry increasing with every second.
"Computer!"
My sudden outburst made them jump.
"Yes Ambassador."
"Emergency meeting, comm room. Now."
"With whom Ambas.."
"Everyone! Now!"
*****
The Ambassadors and the members of the global council were on myriad screens in the comms room and with them were the Koala, Mongoose and the Ferret, Jake. There were no formalities exchanged between them. They had taken the stance that if they were meeting under urgency, like this, they were discussing something serious and shouldn't waste time on frivolous things. When the three were done telling everyone what they had told Panzer, Jaina punched her table before speaking.
"Hunting parties?!"
Panzer sounded his agreement.
"It's absurd isn't it?!"
Catty had kept herself from interrupting the Koala entire time but finally spoke part of her thoughts.
"Well what the fuck is my job then? I thought I was head of planetary defense or some shit!"
"Are these parties large... Ms. Koala?" Not sounding as upset as the others Kyung wanted more information. Ade looked genuinely concerned.
"How many people feel this way? How many people are in your community?"
Enakai didn't like the tone in Ade's voice and almost cut him off.
"Why are you asking a question like that? It sounds..."
Ioana cut him off.
"So what, we're just going to allow genocide?"
"Of COURSE WE AREN'T! But we can't just round up everyone feeling some kind of way about this!"
There was a moment of silent agreement to what Enakai just said but there was still an air of confusion about how exactly to deal with the situation. I tried my best to get us started again but on a calmer note.
"Why do they have to hunt for them? We've done fine fending them off this entire time!"
"They're probably thinking that if we get rid of them we won't have to worry about them at night."
Star had a point.
"They've caused injuries so they aren't harmless." Jaina said, this time holding her anger back a bit better.
"We used to have hunting parties in the old world to keep back dangerous predators from livestock and towns." Ade was almost lost in memory.
"But we're the alpha predators on this planet now! Can't we just mark territory or something?"
"That's gross." Enakai put a hand over his mouth almost whispering to Star's sentiment, which she seemed embarrassed by.
"What?! People do it! It's not as weird as it sounds!"
Kyung nodded his head, motioning to Star' screen. "Star does have a point. It's apart of our biology or anatomy, whichever is the correct term."
I remembered a conversation I'd had a few weeks ago at a small gathering. "Some people have said that the dangerous ones don't pay attention to territory markings."
Enakai nodded his head in agreement but went a step further. "Look, I think we're way past just marking territory if there are people talking about organizing hunts!"
I massaged the bridge of my nose.
"Which brings us back to where we started."
"YO!" Catty yelled over everyone and our heads swiveled, some slightly agitated. "Why don't I just set up security forces like we've been discussing and add 'Feral Watch' to their duty list? We're all getting hands and shit so what better time than to roll out the plan than now?"
It was a simple suggestion and looking at everyone in the conference they had trouble finding a flaw in the plan. We'd had smaller talks about when and how to implement the plan and now was as good a time as any. At least while working out a concrete plan to deal with these "parties". Culling Ferals would make us what we feared we had become, animals.
"I guess that will work until we can figure out how to approach this... better."
Catty walked over to the trio and knelt down to the Koala and Jake.
"You don't have to worry, the forces I'll put in place should be able to help, but I'm not gonna say everything will be fine. You remember the shit show that was the policing system before The Fall. I hope though, that we'll be able to have better people in position this time. That's the only thing I can hope for."
I looked to the trio and then back at the the screens.
"How do we get it across to people that we won't tolerate unwarranted violence against peaceful Ferals?"
Ioana stretched her wings and held up a finger as she thought. "It is not like nobody interacts with Ferals. There are enough of them around to where people know that there are peaceful ones. I can't believe I'm saying this but maybe we should have some kind of campaign showing people that they're idiots for lumping them all into the same category."
"It's not like everyone has televisions anymore." Kyung said flatly.
"Well we know there are Feral's in our communities, maybe we should just befriend them instead of pushing them out?"
"Enakai, that seems a little disingenuous don'tcha think?" Star said, not enthused by the plan.
"What else can we do then? We can't do nothing." Ioana's hands fell in defeat.
"Maybe we should. Do nothing that is."
Everyone looked at Jaina as if she were crazy.
"Have you been absent for this conversation so far?" Enakai asked, genuinely curious.
"Listen, we do nothing until we see something we can do something about right?"
Star was entirely confused. "You're not making much sense right now girl."
"Ouço, listen. You're worried about being disingenuous, so don't do anything. If you see something going against what we talked about here then we actively do something. The council could set up community meetings to tell everyone to chill out but besides that all we can do is wait for the moment to do something."
"That seems lazy." Ade wasn't moved by the idea.
"Then go adopt every Feral you find and make your point that way Ade." Her words were sarcasm tipped knives.
"Woah let's not go after each other's necks now, that's how the fuck you break government down." Catty's words created silence for the next few minutes while people cooled down and thought of other ways to handle this.
"What about rights?"
"Who's rights?"
"Gentle Feral's... that's a stupid term. Do they vote? If there's a natural disaster do we treat them the same?"
Again the room went quiet for a few seconds before Ms. Koala spoke up.
"Of course we treat them the same, they are still people!"
Jake was now sitting up as if to suggest he was was indeed still a person.
"Sun"
"Wait he can talk?!"
The mongoose answered quickly. "He thinks the same way we did before we woke up but with a little more depth. 'Sun' means he's willing to help."
"Hex, were you recording this meeting?"
"As per the rules you set forth Ambassador Ioana Dalca, yes."
"Make sure that last minute is saved and backed up on top of normal protocol."
"Done."
We all looked back at Jake and if we weren't sure of it a few seconds ago, we were now. He was smiling and giving us as good a "thumbs up" his paws could muster.